July 19,2020

As some of you might be aware, July marks the time of the annual Home Video Studio “Getaway” conference. This would have been the 20th time all HVS owners around the globe travelled to meet, greet, and yes, compete for valuable prizes and bragging rights. Well, the odd events of 2020 kind of put the kibosh on our festivities. We will not be meeting or greeting in the face of the pandemic. But we will always be a competitive bunch.

While our “getaway” has been cancelled, our awards ceremony will continue on… virtually.  The many talented studios who comprise the Home Video Studio family have submitted their projects, of which they are rightfully proud, for consideration in close to 20 different categories. Plus there are a few honorific awards that are passed out every year as well.

We will safely attending from home via a streaming event where nominations will be announced (Friday, July 24) followed by the announcement of the winners in each category (Saturday, July 25). We may even put on formal wear for the occasion… at least from the waist up.

Looking back over the years, we have certainly been blessed in the awards department:

2015: Rookie of the Year; Best Rookie Video

2016: Hanley Marketing Award

2017: Best Company Promo; Dr. Strangelove Award; Best Memorial Video; Best Backlot Video; Social Media Award

2018: Best Studio Promo; Best Editing; Best Memorial Video; Social Media Award; Studio Owner of the Year

2019: Best Photo Keepsake; Best Documentary; Dr. Strangelove Award

We’ll be hearing of the award announcements for 2020 on Saturday and will post the results. Until then, here’s a quick look back at some of our successes.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio Mount Dora specialize in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of film, videotapes, audio recordings, photos, negatives, and slides. For more information, call 3520735-8550 or visit our website.

As the country inexorably moves towards “reopening,” pundits everywhere are offering their opinions on what our new normal will look like. The bottom line… no one really knows.  It will be dependent upon which way the wind blows (and what may be in that wind as it’s blowing.)

At Home Video Studio Mount Dora, we certainly altered our operational protocol to reduce the amount of physical interaction needed to take place while the coronavirus threat was so strong. And in many ways, the changes we developed made us more efficient and allowed us to maximize our time management to a higher degree. So, speaking for ourselves, our new normal will be a continuation of the processes we put in place to keep everyone safe while we continued serving the community during this time.

We are in the studio 6 days a week from 9:30am until 5:00pm but we request that our clients call us to schedule an appointment so we can be sure as to manage the traffic flow in and out of our studio.

Simple drop off and pick up of orders can be conducted curbside. More complex transactions will be handled inside our sanitized studio which will be re-sanitized after every visitor. We will be wearing masks during all face to face interactions and ask all to do the same.

We’ve been doing the above for the past month and have been able to operate without a hiccup. We’re thrilled to be able to continue providing the services that allow our customers to preserve and protect their memories from loss or damage and look forward to the time that we can help you with your next project.

The individual pictured above is famous for saying: “What, me worry?” Like him, we have no reason to be worried. We’re getting through this in fine shape.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio Mount Dora specialize in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of film, videotapes, audio recordings, photos, negatives, and slides. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit our website.

I wanted to share this unsolicited post that popped up on social media last week:

“Christmas is coming! Last year I was able to give my parents an amazing present that was well received by the entire family. Old film, VHS, slides, etc that had not been played in 35+ years (and could not be played on any devices we had!) were brought back to life – we were able to watch Christmas’s, birthdays and other celebrations with loved ones that have passed and we were able to laugh and cry as a family. I also condensed an entire cabinet or two of unplayable media into a small digital drive…mom loved this. I highly recommend Michael Ondrasik at Home Video Studio in Mount Dora for the best Christmas present around.”

We see it happen year after year. The work we do for our clients have a tendency to stop their Christmas celebrations in its tracks. As soon as our gift is unwrapped, all other gifts are put on hold while the family gathers around the TV or computer screen to watch their memories begin to play back.

Watching the old footage sparks laughs, brings tears, and triggers other memories of days and times gone by. Christmas is best spent with families and what better way to spend that time than by reflecting on the experiences you had growing up together?

If you want to turn this Christmas holiday into something truly memorable, get in touch with us. Whether it is a home movie or home video conversion to a digital format or a specially designed photo video keepsake using images from your scrapbook or photo albums, we will make sure that you have something under your tree that will be the most talked about present of the season.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio specialize in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of film, videotapes, audio recordings, photos, negatives and slides. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit our website.

You might be thinking that all I did in the recent Getaway in Tucson was win awards.  I have to admit, that was a sweet icing on the cake but the real reason we attend this annual event is to learn, grow, and stretch our abilities in our field. My personal focus this year was to further develop or polish some of the production skills that I don’t always get an opportunity to use during the normal course of our business. I spent much of my time during that week composing and editing a 60 second commercial that I hope to be using for our company in the coming year.

Here’s a first look at the newest commercial spot for Home Video Studio of Mount Dora. It’s called “Imagine.”

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio specialize in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of film, videotape, audio recordings, photos, negatives and slides. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit our website.

We get a lot of compliments on the stained glass windows that frame our windows in our lobby. And they are attractive. But I had nothing to do with them. These gorgeous custom-made artistic creations were left behind by the previous owner presumedly because they were made to fit this exact space.

I know this to be true because, to my surprise, a woman came into the studio a while back to transfer some tapes and recognized her design. Yes, she was the artist who was commissioned to draw the design that became these lovely stained glass windows.

She’s a local and a stained glass designer. Her father, now in his 80s if I recall the story correctly, works out of his garage and creates the glass masterpieces from her drawings.  She gave me her card but I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t do well with business cards. Most of them end up on the floor, tossed in a drawer or, I suspect, somehow drop through a wormhole into a 6th dimension. In any case, I can’t find the card and can’t remember the name of the company to give credit where credit is due.

So, stained glass designer, if you are out there in the blogosphere, drop me a line and remind me of your company name and contact information. I’ll make sure to pass it along to all the people who have been admiring your work.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio specialize in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of film, videotapes, audio cassettes, photos, negatives and slides. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit our website.

Our “season” came to an end last night at the 18th annual Home Video Studio Getaway. As always, it was a time of learning, camaraderie, and some good-natured competition as studio owners vie for honors during our traditional black-tie Hanley Awards celebration.

Every year, we enter the event with low expectations due to the level of talent that HVS attracts. The competition is always stiff. However, last night our cup runneth over as we ended up with 8 total award nominations and 5 Hanley Awards.

Memories Matter was chosen for the Cut and Paste Award for excellence in editing. This short piece which I put together using stock footage clips from Film Supply, a video clip repository, tells a story without dialogue. The tag at the end is for a fictitious company, as that was one of the rules of the competition for which it was made, but you could easily replace it with the name of my company for it is my story that is being told.

The Life and Times of Ralph and Mary was selected for Best Memorial video. Memorials will always take priority in my studio as I know from personal experience what a trying time it can be for a family to go through the pain of losing someone. The last thing they need is to stress over putting something together to honor the memory. So we take the stress out of the process. The video we submitted for consideration was unique in that it was a dual memorial for a husband and wife who, after a long life together, passed in relatively quick succession to one another. If we have to depart this earth, I can’t think of a better way to do it. 

Testimonials won out for the Best Studio Promo. Using some stock photographs, retro music and actual quotes taken from some of our client’s testimonials that they have been kind enough to leave on various social media sites, we pieced together this short commercial. As my wife often observes, we have the nicest clients. We always appreciate the feedback we get after we deliver the goods and we wanted to pay homage to the people who keep us in business.

The awards continued with our acceptance of the Social Media award which was given to me, I believe, in recognition of my blogging efforts which has proven to be personally rewarding. Thank you for your support and interest in my musings.

Finally, in what came as a surprise to us, we were humbled to receive the Studio Owner of the Year award. You would have to know the caliber of talent and expertise on display in the Home Video Studio family to understand the level of our shock at being selected above others for this high honor.

But, as special as this time spent has been, we can’t wait to get back to the studio and get back to work. We love what we do and love who we do it for. Hope to see you in the studio in the very near future. We’ll have our Hanleys on display. Come on by and have your picture taken with them.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio specialize in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of film, videotapes, audio recordings, photos, negatives, and slides. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit our website.

I spent most of the day in the editing suite working on a commercial spot for the studio while expanding my working knowledge of Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Audition in Adobe’s Creative Cloud video editing platforms. Hopefully, when I’m done, I’ll have something I can use to help promote my business while, at the same time, continuing to build upon the skills I need to provide superior service to my clients.

Being in Tucson, we had an old fashioned cowboy cookout for dinner and afterwards, Kate and I were tapped to be actors in a film for another studio owner who is putting a web video together.  And then it was time for the 2018 awards nomination announcement.  As in past years, the competition is pretty stiff. We have some very talented people in the Home Video Studio family. But we managed to walk away with a total of seven nods. All the nominations were pulled from work I have performed in the studio between September 2017 and April 2018. Here are the categories for which we have been nominated and a brief description of what they mean:

Best Sports Video:  usually a sports highlight video or a sports scholarship video intended to showcase the strengths of a specific player or team.

Cut and Paste Award for Editing: focuses on the juxtaposition and movement from one scene or clip to another. Editing is a key element when telling a story with video. The judges will look for expertise and efficiency in the editing choices.

Best Memorial Video: a specific type of photo/video keepsake that celebrates the life of a person who has recently passed on. 

Best Company Promo: a video intended to promote a business (other than the studio itself). The judges look for how effective the spot is in creating and communicating a call to action in the minds of the viewer.

Best Studio Promo/Trailer/Tag: a video that promotes Home Video Studio. A promo is a 4 or 5 minute spot that describes the services and value of the studio. A trailer is a condensed promo designed to highlight the studio’s services and benefits in under a minute. A tag is a short 10 second clip used as an identifier, like an animated logo reveal.

The Dr. Strangelove Award:  an open category for videos hard to classify. They are usually humorous, often quirky, and …more times than not… a crowd-pleaser.

Best DVA Authoring: one of the features of our streaming service – Digital Video Archive – is the ability to customize a video’s menu features by inserting chapter markers, choosing thumbnail images and more. The award will go to the most creative and useful custom DVA authored video.

Winners will be announced at a black tie gala event to be held this coming Saturday. 

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio specialize in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of films, videotapes, audio recordings, photos, negatives and slides. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit our website.

NOTE: Home Video Studio of Mount Dora is closed until Monday, July 30th, while Michael and Kate attend the 18th annual HVS Getaway in Tucson, Arizona.

When you reach a certain age, you have probably have had this experience: You’re sitting in one room of your house when you suddenly get up and walk into another room for a reason… but when you get to that room, you find you can’t remember why you went there.

Memory is sometimes fickle like that. One moment you can recall with absolute clarity the finest details of your past and other times the memory you are searching for seems just out of reach like it is hidden behind a veil. You know it’s there but you are unable to reach out and pull back the curtain to reveal it. It is frustrating.

Having your memories stored on devices that can no longer be played is just as frustrating. All the events, occasions, and family times that were important enough to record for future reference were supposed to be available to us when we reached the future. But technology had other plans.

Fortunately, there is a way to retrieve those memories and bring them with us to our current day and time. If you have a 8mm or Super 8 film but no projector to play them on; or a VHS, hi-8, or mini-dv videotape but no working tape player; if you have boxes of 35mm slides but the irreplaceable bulb in your projector is dead; or you have photos so faded you can’t see the people in them clearly; or if you found an old audiotape that you don’t recognize or a vinyl album you vaguely remember but lack the equipment that can play them… there is a solution.

My company, Home Video Studio specializes in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of old analog media. Bring us a 8mm film, we’ll give you back that footage on a DVD or a computer file that you can play today. We can even offer you the ability to stream that home movie to your smart phone or tablet. Same with all those videotapes you haven’t seen in decades. And as far as the slides, photos and audio recordings go, not only do we give you the access once again to view or listen to those memories, our digital products take up much less space than their bulky analog counterparts.

Your memories deserve to be preserved and protected. More importantly, they ought to be remembered. At Home Video Studio, we make sure they can.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio stand ready to help you protect your memories. And right now, we are in the midst of our Christmas in July sale, offering up to 40% off many of our transfer services. Call 352-735-8550 for more info or visit our website.

I attended our local Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting yesterday. I don’t know if you can tell from the photo above but the guest speaker was the Sheriff of Lake County who introduced us to a leading expert on active killer situations. He spoke to us on our country’s long history regarding mass attacks and school massacres. Surprisingly, it is nothing new.  It just feels like it is. That doesn’t make me feel any better. 

My generation never practiced for terrorist attacks or school shootings.  It simply wasn’t on our radar. We were an in-between generation. Too late for the Cold War and too early for domestic terrorism. In my day, the only defense training we received was a twice a year fire drill which hardly any of us took seriously. We got up, marched down the hallways in a straight single-file line until we were outside and then our nature took over and we became kids at recess.

The generation before me wasn’t as lucky. They were taught the duck and cover maneuver to “protect” themselves during nuclear attacks. 

Speaking frankly, that always seemed a little silly to me. My school desk was unable to protect me from the spitballs lobbed from David Cook seated a row behind me… I somehow think it would not have been an effective deterrent to an H-bomb lobbed from a Russian sub.

These days, whole classrooms are being taught the Run, Hide, Fight response. Instead of teaching our children to be victims (aka Duck and Cover), they are being taught how to take action to try to avoid being victims. It is great training but in my opinion, it is something that we, as a society, should be ashamed by the fact that it even has to be part of the curriculum. Not that it isn’t needed… it is. And that is why we should be ashamed.

Our culture is what it is and there are so many moving parts to it that it is difficult to effect overall change except in gradual steps. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t make the attempt. It took a while for us to get to the sad and unfortunate place that we are… and it will take a while to move us back to where we should be. But every step we take in that direction will be worth the effort. There is nothing normal about this “new normal” in which we find ourselves. 

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio of Mount Dora specialize in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of film, videotapes, audio recordings, photos, negatives and slides. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit our website.

I met with a prospective client today who seemed a little overwhelmed with a project she is beginning to undertake. She has discovered boxes of 35mm slides that contain the photographic memories of her family and her youth.

She wants to preserve them by moving them to a digital medium but is aware of the potential costs and wants to select only those images that will have meaning to her and her family.

It is a natural and understandable feeling. I told her that I’ll be happy to scan anything she brings me to create a digital file that will preserve and protect the memories they invoke but I quite understand that she may not want to bring her entire slide collection to my studio.

I always encourage my customers to cull their collection. Here are the tips I provide:

• Look for people. One of the biggest mistakes people made back in the day when taking photos was to capture the scenery without placing a family member in the foreground. Getting a nice shot of the Eiffel Tower is great. But you can find better pictures of the Eiffel Tower online or in a book. When preserving memories, focus on the people in your past. Those are the pictures/memories that cannot be duplicated or found anywhere else.
• Don’t worry so much about photo quality. If the colors have faded or bled a bit, digital restoration can often bring the picture back to its original quality. Our pricing includes color restoration and image enhancement. Don’t reject a slide or picture just because its dulled a bit over time.
• Know how you want to enjoy and use these memories when the job is completed. We can provide you with .jpg files that will give you individual access to each image. We can also use those .jpgs to assemble a presentation DVD that will play your slides like a movie with motion, transitions and a musical soundtrack. Or you may choose to receive both.
• The slides will be scanned in the order in which they are presented to me. So if having the slides appear in chronological order is important to you, take the time to sort them chronologically.
• And for an extra special touch, we can have you add a narrative soundtrack or commentary along with captions so future generations can hear, from your own voice, exactly what they are looking at and why.

Those are just some of the considerations that come to mind. But always remember that our services are completely customizable. We will adapt our services to meet your needs and desires. You just have to tell us what they are.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studios specialize in the preservation of family memories through the digitalization of film, videotapes, audio recordings, photos and slides. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit our website.